# Things You Learned/Figured Out At A Surprisingly Advanced Age
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 26, 2019, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249 "2019-02-26T17:07:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/41 "2019-02-28T19:05:18Z")
I think I learned something new just now. I use a compass for drawing maybe a few times a month. I usually always keep the pencil set at the same length as the pointer or maybe just a tad longer. It just occured to me today that it might be easier to adjust the compass so the pointer is straight up and down regardless of the size of the circle. Still not positive which way is correct?
---
### Author:  [@Calatin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calatin)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/42 "2019-02-28T19:37:59Z")
I have a pseudo-famous grandfather and so whenever I would visit, there were always big events or we’d get special treatment. It wasn’t until I was in late elementary school that I learned that he did not own the University of which we share a surname.
Back in the day, Trump was looking at buying American Airlines. I’d hear my parents talking about it, while negotiations were in place. It wasn’t until my late-teens that I realized that my father was not personally meeting with Trump (mainly because after the deal fell through, I didn’t think of it until Trump made the news for something of another).
---
### Author:  [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/43 "2019-02-28T20:38:45Z")
That Yazoo’s lead singer is a woman. Found out like last year. Mind blown.
---
### Author:  [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/44 "2019-02-28T20:54:33Z")
I was a teenager before I realized that you could just not believe in God. And It’s not like a had a super religious family or anything. I just didn’t know that was an option.
> [@divemaster](#):
>
> I was at an embarrassingly adult age when I finally figured out that those “no standing” signs posted along curbs referred to _cars_. It never occurred to me that a car could “stand.”
I thought “No Peddling” meant “No Bike Riding”
---
### Author:  [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/45 "2019-02-28T21:02:11Z")
> [@campp](#):
>
> When I was a child, my grandmother was known to me as “Nana”. I thought that was her name until about age 12, when her first name came up in a game we were playing.
I had a Great-Aunt who lived with us when I was little, universally known as Auntie. I mean universal- everyone from my Grandpa on the other side of the family to the postie called her that. Her actual name was Amelia, but on the rare occasion she ever used the name (normally quoting her mother), she always dropped the ‘A’.
So Auntie, who used to be called ‘Melia’ got post arrived addressed to ‘A. Surname’. Took me an embarrassingly long time to work out that the A belonged on the front of ‘Melia’, and was not from Auntie…
I was also 12 before I discovered my maternal Grandmother wasn’t dead, but that wasn’t so odd given the circumstances.
---
### Author:  [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/46 "2019-02-28T22:34:34Z")
I swear I was in my 40’s when I stopped just grabbing scissors and putting my hand in any old which-way, and put my thumb in the little hole and fingers in the big one.
Did you know that virtually all kitchen tongs/BBQ tongs can be locked closed? Pull the little tab on the end. I kept wondering why sometimes tongs wouldn’t open as wide as they should. Figured that out last year.
---
### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/47 "2019-02-28T22:52:03Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#):
>
> I think you and I are of the same generation, and hooded sweatshirts weren’t called “hoodies” when we were growing up. I don’t know when the term was coined - I \*think \*my first exposure might have been the Trayvon Martin case- but Adam Sandler was still referring to his “Red Hooded Sweatshirt” in 1997. And “hoodie” does sound like baby-talk.
Per Webster’s, first recorded use was 1990.
---
### Author:  [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/48 "2019-02-28T23:22:29Z")
You know the old joke, “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”? I must have first heard it sometime in the early 1970’s, while Nixon was president would be my guess. Anyway, just last year I “got” the pun. That’s what, 45 years or so that I went around oblivious?.. It gave me the feeling like I got when I went to France (on business) and my French colleague told me the French word for “lemon” was “Citron”. All of a sudden, years upon years of Citron jokes made sense and I had to laugh out-loud.
---
### Author:  [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/49 "2019-02-28T23:24:19Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#):
>
> I was a teenager before I realized that you could just not believe in God. And It’s not like a had a super religious family or anything. I just didn’t know that was an option.
>
> \
I was in my thirties before I realized you could.
---
### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/50 "2019-02-28T23:38:00Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#):
>
> I think you and I are of the same generation, and hooded sweatshirts weren’t called “hoodies” when we were growing up. I don’t know when the term was coined - I \*think \*my first exposure might have been the Trayvon Martin case- but Adam Sandler was still referring to his “Red Hooded Sweatshirt” in 1997. And “hoodie” does sound like baby-talk.
I had a housemate who liked to watch Cops. I remember hearing the term on an episode of that show for the first time. It would have been 1991 or 1992.
---
### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/51 "2019-02-28T23:49:57Z")
Fifth-grade educational films about spawning salmon gave me the idea that fertilization is external in all egg-laying species. So I thought the hen lays an egg, then later the rooster comes along and fertilizes the egg. I got all the way through high-school biology without being disabused of this notion. I was probably about 20 when I learned about cloacal kissing in a book.
My sister and I thought “xing” was a word pronounced “zing” that means something like “zone”. You know, from all those “Ped Xing” signs. I was probably 12 when somebody had to tell me that “xing” is an abbreviations for “crossing.”
Until I was 18 or so, I thought “more at X” in dictionary etymologies (possibly limited to Merriam-Webster’s offerings) meant something like “this word is used in a sense similar to X”. I literally hit myself on the forehead when I realized it meant “more information on the etymology of this word is available at the entry for X.”
---
### Author:  [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2019, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/52 "2019-02-28T23:58:27Z")
I was probably 13 when I figured out the clip on clip-on ties opened wide and snapped shut. This sure made putting the stupid things on easier! Mom protested, she was sure I was just going to break it!
---
### Author:  [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/53 "2019-03-01T02:35:10Z")
> [@bibliophage](#):
>
> My sister and I thought “xing” was a word pronounced “zing” that means something like “zone”. You know, from all those “Ped Xing” signs. I was probably 12 when somebody had to tell me that “xing” is an abbreviations for “crossing.”
My college girlfriend was convinced that misled was pronounced “my-zuld”, and that there was a word pronounced “miss led”, but it meant something else.
---
### Author:  [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/54 "2019-03-01T02:48:19Z")
I was in my early 40s, I think, when I learned that Jell-O was mostly made from animal by-products. :eek:
---
### Author:  [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/55 "2019-03-01T02:51:54Z")
Speaking about pronunciation, I was probably in my mid-20’s before I figured out that “cache” was pronounced like the word “cash”. I only ever read it in print in regards to computer memory, and I thought it was more like “kaysh”. I said it that way for years and nobody ever corrected me.
---
### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/56 "2019-03-01T03:03:31Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#):
>
> The same is true with fitted bed sheets. The corner with the label goes in the lower right. Or is it the lower left? I can never remember (until I try the second time).
Damn, I never knew this. :eek::eek:
---
### Author:  [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/57 "2019-03-01T05:42:34Z")
I was rather far into my 30s before I realized that odd and even addresses were on opposite sides of the street.
Stop laughing.
---
### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/58 "2019-03-01T13:17:10Z")
> [@Jet\_Jaguar](#):
>
> Speaking about pronunciation, I was probably in my mid-20’s before I figured out that “cache” was pronounced like the word “cash”. I only ever read it in print in regards to computer memory, and I thought it was more like “kaysh”. I said it that way for years and nobody ever corrected me.
That’s okay. Used to work with someone who pronounced it “kah-SHAY” like a pseudo French word. Since we had a somewhat tech role, I had to hear “Have you cleared your kah-SHAY yet?” multiple times a day.
_twitch_
---
### Author:  [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/59 "2019-03-01T13:44:35Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#):
>
> They are called ‘Labs’ for short.
My Lab is smart. Great Danes are morons.
---
### Author:  [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249/60 "2019-03-01T13:44:53Z")
> [@Swampwolf](#):
>
> I was around 45 when I realised that C-3PO has one silver leg. I’ve seen Star Wars an infinite number of times, ever since it was in the theatres in the late 70s!
Wait, what!!! Google, google, google… holy crap! You are right! :eek:
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249.md?page=2)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-learned-figured-out-at-a-surprisingly-advanced-age/830249.md?page=4)